


A Kiss with Open Eyes

by lonelywalker



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Serial Killers, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 04:09:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-<i>No Way Out</i>. Jane is on a road trip with a serial killer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Kiss with Open Eyes

Jane is on a road trip with a serial killer.

It's a long drive to Frank's home, he'd told her as they'd set off, preparing her for boredom and discomfort. But she sits beside him as he drives, his right hand grasping hers, utterly enchanted by the way he describes his visits to her over the years, the inexorable pull she'd had on him – a force even he can't understand. Every few minutes he looks over at her, as his grip on her hand tightens, and she can see…

Agent Gideon had said that Frank _couldn't_ feel love, that if he was feeling anything at all it had to be some twisted, corrupted, sadistic echo of an emotion. But what she sees in his eyes... If that isn't love, then what is?

The night falls quickly, and Frank keeps driving, his decisions at every junction calm and clear. She feels safe with him. Secure. So when, with no one else in sight, he drives off the road and beyond the treeline, killing the engine, it's curiosity rather than panic that he inspires.

"We'll spend the night here," Frank says. He has such a wonderful voice: steady and resonant. She couldn't argue with that voice, but then she doesn't want to. "There are blankets in the trunk if you're cold."

She can't keep the awe from her tone. "You planned everything."

"I always plan everything," he tells her. "It's… part of my charm."

No one's treated her with such care since she was a child, and if she can look into his dark eyes and see him for his heart rather than his deeds, he seems to be able to do just the same with her. He doesn't think she's crazy. Doesn't think she's anything but an innocent girl he’d once met by the side of the road.

"I'm sorry," he tells her when she's bundled up in the back seat, cozy and warm, covered by a gray camping blanket and his jacket. "Not for taking you. It's what I do, Jane. It's who I am. But for leaving you alone for so long. So many years… I just couldn't understand what you were making me feel. What _feeling_ was at all."

He's really too big to fit in there with her, but she tugs him inside and he comes willingly, shutting the door against the chill night air. She needs to hold him, to feel how _real_ and solid he is, and to have him hold her, as if she's worth something, as if she's not alone.

He still smells the same. Warm. Masculine. A scent she could close her eyes to and just drift off to sleep… But instead she says, "What if they catch us?" There's no fear in the question, but she wants to be reassured.

Frank stirs, a hand rubbing her back through the blanket. "You were helping the federal agents find the children. You're not to blame. They'll let you go, and I… I'll do whatever it takes to find you again."

 _Whatever it takes._ The attitude of those same agents tells her she should be scared. Disgusted. But no one's ever done so much for her. No one's ever cared at all.

"I love you," she says, her voice small, her tone tentative. She doesn't know him, but she's known him longer than she's known anyone.

She can feel his breath on her face. "Jane," he says after a moment, and there's so much tenderness in his voice she could cry. "A name as old as the centuries, from France to Greece to ancient Israel. 'God is gracious.' Would that we all had a name as beautiful as yours."

"Frank…" She hadn't known his name, all those years. Just the feeling of his presence watching over her, and the memory of his face. His hair had been a thick blond then, but his eyes are just the same.

"From a warlike Germanic tribe. It was the name of their spear. A lethal weapon."

Her fingers lightly trace the features of his face in the dark. "To be frank... It means to be honest, too. To be a good man." She beams as though she's solved a particularly tricky riddle. Perhaps she has.

She can feel him smiling beneath her fingertips. "Oh, Jane," he says, and moves in to kiss her. "I'll be a very good man for you."

"Your best behavior?" she jokes.

"The very best."

In the years since Frank first took her, she hasn't been with men, but she wants to make him happy. As they kiss, warm and close, her hand moves down to feel him, stroking in the way she remembers from long ago. But, despite the heat curling in her body, despite the way he's kissing her, there's no response.

"I'm sorry," she stutters out, "I'm doing it wrong… So stupid."

"Jane." His hand grips her arm. "It's not you."

Of course. He's not like other men. What he wants isn't what other men want. She thinks over it for a moment, and swallows. "Do you… need to hurt me?"

She'd let him, too, but his rebuke is firm and swift. "No, Jane. I could never hurt you."

So here they are. And it's not as if it isn't pleasant, lying in his arms, perfectly warm, perfectly comfortable, with the man she's been dreaming of for thirty years. But...

A thought comes to her, dredged up from the past when, as a little child, she would be confused and scared in the dark. "Close your eyes," she tells him, her fingers a feather-light touch on his eyelids. She likes the fact that he actually does as he's told about as much as she does telling him what to do. "Close your eyes and think happy thoughts."

Frank breathes out, his body relaxing. And when she moves her hand again, she's met with an answering hardness, and a contented moan from deep in his throat. She has absolutely no desire to know what he's thinking of, if not her, but it's her body he's pressed against, her body she’s offering him.

He could crush the life out of her in this small space, in this near-complete darkness, but he's careful in his passion as he moves over her, pulling away her clothing with deft fingers. And when he pushes inside her… Well, her pained gasp is soothed away by his gentle kisses, by his whispered assurances that he loves her, that he's always loved her.

When she wakes the next morning, pushing his coat off her, feeling his come still slick on her thighs, they're already moving again. "Coffee?" Frank says, glancing over his shoulder. There's a garish cardboard cup in a holder between the seats. "It's not too bad. Best for fifty miles."

Ten minutes later, he stops the car to let her stretch her legs. She has no idea even which state they're in, and the world as far as she can see seems strange and fresh and new.

Frank sits on the hood and watches her. "I read the newspapers at the gas station. They're looking, but they won't find us. People never see what's in front of their faces. They don't have photographs. Not even a name."

The idea disturbs her. "Not a name?" She's lived so many years with only a memory to hold on to. He can't take away what little she knows of him so soon.

"Not a full name. Just imagine how many Franks there are, roughly my age." A smile slowly comes to his face, and he drops down from the hood, stretching out his hand. "Frank Breitkopf. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss."

The federal agents had told her what a monster Frank was – not an alien, but not a man either. They'd told her how utterly incapable he was of feeling love, affection, tenderness… She's sure that they had all looked into his eyes and seen absolutely nothing at all. But she takes his hand now, feeling the warmth of his skin, the gentle strength in his grip, and knows just how wrong they all are. He'll never hurt her and, as long as she stays with him, he'll never hurt anyone else again.

If he's her jailer, then she, too, is his.

"Come on," she says, tugging his hand playfully. "Take me home. I want to see where you live. I want to know _everything_ about you. Where are you from? What do you _do_?"

Frank opens the passenger door for her, a perfect gentleman. "Well," he says as she settles into the seat, coffee cup still warm in her hand. "Let me tell you about Manhattan."

Jane is on a road trip with a serial killer, and she's never been so happy in her life.


End file.
